1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: an image processing apparatus such as a multifunctional digital image forming apparatus which is capable of generating thumbnail images; a thumbnail image generating method for the image processing apparatus; and a recording medium with a thumbnail image generating program being stored thereon to make a computer of the image processing apparatus implement the thumbnail image generating method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
Usually, a small-sized image of a cover page of an electronic document (also referred to as a file) is displayed as a thumbnail image, and this is very helpful for users to remember the content.
However, if not remembering the thumbnail image at all, users would need to open the file to make sure if it is really not the one that they are trying to find.
If it is a document including various sets of topics which poorly correlate with each other and also can serve independently as well, for example a file consisting of a couple of years of annual technical reports, a thumbnail image of a particular page or part of the document would not be always helpful for every user to remember the content.
More specifically, if it is a document including a technical report created by User A and a technical report created by User B, a thumbnail image of a part of the document created by User A would be definitely helpful for User A to remember the content while a thumbnail image of a cover page or a part of the document created by User B would not be always helpful for User A because he/she might not have viewed the content.
To make thumbnail images more helpful, as suggested in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-298903, there has been an image processing apparatus which is allowed to: display a plurality of thumbnail images which are small-sized images; and pick up from each of the images a particular part which is easy to recognize the image, for example a beginning part of the image, to show at a higher magnification in a balloon window popping up close to the image. The image processing apparatus makes it fairly easy for users to recognize all the images and find a target image among them.
Also, as suggested in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-072842, there has been an image processing apparatus which is allowed to: read out an image from a document; and display thumbnail images of objects included in the readout image, on a display in different styles depending on which group the objects belong to, for example: document titles, chapter titles, drawings, tables, pictures, handwritten texts, and keywords. The image processing apparatus makes it fairly easy for users to find a target page based on the thumbnail images.
However, according to the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 2008-298903 and No. 2010-072842, the image processing apparatus generates thumbnail images regardless of the user operating the image processing apparatus itself, and thus cannot solve the problem described above, that is, a thumbnail image of a particular page or part of a document created by a first user would be definitely helpful for the first user to remember the content while a thumbnail image of a particular page or part of a document created by a second user would not be always helpful for the first user because he/she might not have viewed the content.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.